


Liquid Courage

by headlesscardinal



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Femslash, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 09:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headlesscardinal/pseuds/headlesscardinal
Summary: "Are you telling me this just to impress me?" Piper crosses her arms, raising an eyebrow in amusement. In honesty, she would have called bullshit if it was anyone else who claimed the story, but she didn't doubt a word of it."The real question is did it work?"A.K.A a distracted Piper gets herself hurt in a fairly stupid way, leading to Sole patching her up in Vault 111 and sharing with her a 200+ year old bottle of alcohol because it's high time our favorite reporter finds out more about the woman she's been traveling with.





	Liquid Courage

**Author's Note:**

> So I was drunk and decided to write the first fanfiction I've written in years. I'm pretty invested in my own headcanon about Sole and Piper's relationship and I'd actually be pretty willing to write a multichapter fic about them if there's interest, so I'm just posting this to see how much of it there is. If I do end up writing a multichapter, I'll post a picture of my Sole and give you chapters of canon-typical M-rated awesomeness. Obviously there's too much to encompass in the Sole/Piper story than I can fit in one chapter, so consider this a teaser of some sort.
> 
> Cheers. If you want to talk, follow me on the blue hellsite called tumblr @tricardinal

Piper Wright is a woman that most would not describe as careless. Her antics as a Diamond City reporter reminded her of the stories often featured in those pre-war detective novels that were her absolute guilty pleasures as a teenager, and even now. Mix in an unhealthy dose of irradiated animals, raiders, and synths, and you could even say that the novels she so adores --the same ones that she still keeps by her bedside -- can't compare to the life she has. Keeping a little sister safe while being involved in whatever her adventure of the week was definitely requires a measure of competence that most don't have.

Knowing this doesn't get to her head, either. Everyone knows it takes only one stupid mistake or one stroke of bad luck to get you dead or worse in the Commonwealth. Therefore, every time she drops of Nat at Nick's office for him and Ellie to watch over while she goes on another bloodbath with 'Blue', she makes sure her gun's not jammed and she has enough rations and stimpaks to last a few days extra on the road.

It takes just one mistake, she reminds herself.

It was a stupid mistake. One could even call it funny, if it didn't hurt so much. Blue asked her to help scavenge for some junk she could scrap for parts at Sanctuary. At this point, the settlement had made a lot of progress. Supply lines had been established, with the Red Rocket stop serving as some kind of checkpoint. It had taken time, but the Commonwealth has a significant amount of Minutemen-aligned settlements dotting the landscape, nowadays. Larger settlements mean more attacks by raiders and super mutants and the likes, and that means more repairs. This time, a settler's hut got one bullet hole too many and Blue offered to help out the poor guy. Incidentally, this is how she and the mysterious sole survivor of Vault 111 ends up right outside said vault ransacking a pile of crap that's gathered into a tall heap of salvageable materials.

Watching Blue on her knees, throwing a bunch of miscellaneous scrap over her shoulder while digging into a heap of garbage is quite an interesting sight for the reporter. The woman's very presence screams "armed and dangerous", as if the gun she salvaged from Kellogg that hangs on her hip isn't enough of a hint. If it wasn't for the pip boy, Piper would have most likely not picked up on how Blue was a vault dweller back when they first met outside the walls of Diamond City. Vault dwellers are usually clean, naive, unprepared for the harsh reality of post-war America. Piper's heard horror stories about the fates of most vault dwellers, the most adjacent being the one Curie's from, and she knows that a high percentage of the ones who do make it out are usually robbed and killed by raiders, get torn into pieces by ferals, or become chow for mole rats.

Blue, though, there was definitely something off about her that Piper noticed during their first conversation together. The scars on her face stood out the most, as did the alertness of her eyes and the speed of her draw with a gun. She carries herself with her head high, and despite the humorous quips that more often than not make Piper chuckle, her voice commands authority. Not the kind Mayor McDonough has that the reporter oh so despises, but a sort of charisma that makes her want to go anywhere with her, do everything with her. It doesn't hurt that wherever she goes, Piper finds a headline or two to publish.

Dumpster diving is an activity usually more favored by wastelanders just trying to scrape together enough caps to get some disgusting slog to eat and not by women like her, Piper tells herself, as she absentmindedly opens a rusted fridge door. It was an innocent act that she would now discover to be a huge mistake. It was at that moment that Piper hears a skitter and feels a sharp, biting pain on her calf. She yelps in pain, immediately looking down to see the cause of her agony: a pincer of a fairly small radscorpion clamped tightly around her leg. "Shit!" She freezes in pain as her attempt to pull her leg out only makes the serrated edges dig into her flesh even more. Even more alarmingly, the radscorpion raises it's stinger, ready to strike. It's other pincer snaps ominously in preparation for it's lunch today. Piper puts her hand on her gun, hoping that she'd have enough time to land a bullet in the animal's head before it can inject it's venom into her. She's heard horror stories about racscorpion venom and how fast it kills.

Just as her gun leaves her holster, a loud bang pierces the air, and the radscorpion's stinger is blown off. Blue stands with her smoking firearm as she fires another deafeningly loud shot that goes right through it's head. Immediately, the bloody pincer slackens around her leg, but the damage has been done. Piper throws her arms out to balance herself, bracing for a fall that never comes. Her enigmatic companion breaks her fall with herself, holding her up with both her arms.

"God damn, how did we not see that thing?" Blue curses.

"The little critter jumped out of that fridge." Piper mumbles into her chest as she tries to stand on her own again. Turns out that's not so easy when one of your legs refuse to work whatsoever. "I know, I have no idea how it could have ended up in there."

"Piper..." Blue says her name in that tone of voice she uses when she's mildly exasperated at something.

"What?" Piper finally balances herself, staring at the fridge door. It has what she'd describe as a window on it, one that's long shattered, providing a snug but possible fit for a critter to get inside. "Oh."

"It was probably trying to drink. It just rained so there's bound to be some water in there." Blue sighs, scolding herself in her head. "Oh course there's a fucking radscorpion in the fridge the day I decide to leave Dogmeat at Sanctuary. He would've sniffed it out."

"I was just careless." Piper is quick to interrupt that train of thought. "It was my fault."

Blue doesn't look like she buys it. "I'm gonna lie you down and take a look at your leg, 'kay?" She deftly scoops the younger woman into her arms bridal-style before she gets an answer, walking over to the station that contains the switch that opens Vault 111's entrance.

Piper inhales deeply, recognizing the intermingling smell of rain and gun oil. _So this is what she smells like_. "Blue, it's fine. I've got a stimpak."

"Stimpaks aren't going to heal you right this second, Piper." She replies, gently putting her companion down and letting her lean on the wall. "I know pretty advanced first aid. No harm in letting me take a look, right?"

"Right." Piper can't stop her sheepish smile from showing. "I'm not usually this much of a klutz, I swear."

Blue chuckles lowly, putting her hands on Piper's boot as if asking for permission to take it off. "I know. We've been on the road together for a while, now."

Something wet drops on the tip of Piper's nose. Both women simultaneously look up to see thick, dark clouds obscuring the sun. "Damn it, as if the road heading up to here wasn't muddy enough already." She curses under her breath.

"It'll make it harder for you to get back down with this, huh?" The gears in Blue's head begins to turn.

"I'm sorry." Piper apologizes, uncharacteristically timid. "I was just a bit... um..." "Distracted." She gulps. "Yeah."

"I wonder why." Blue says, with a teasing tone that Piper isn't sure if she imagined or not. "Well, I know there are some proper medical supplies in the vault. We can wait out the rain there. Besides, there's something I left there that I think you'd like."

"Oh?" Piper raises a curious eyebrow. "Well, going in someplace dry is probably a good idea. With the broken window on this thing, the rainwater's probably going to give us one nasty rash even if we take shelter here."

"That, or melt our skin off."

She looks up. The sky's looking almost olive, a clear sign of a radiation storm coming their way. "The clouds _are_ looking suspiciously green."

 

* * *

 

The walk to the vault's entrance is short and quiet. The actual vault must be located deep below the surface of the earth, as the hole leading there looks like an endless gaping maw. A peek confirms that Piper can't see the bottom of it, and she tightens the hold she has around Blue's shoulder for a measure of comfort. However way they put it, they're entering a mass grave under all this.

"Huh," Blue somewhat bitterly smiles. "Haven't been back here in a while."

Piper looks away. "You can go back. I... I know it's hard for you to be back in this place. It's my fault for being distracted, anyway."

"Hey there," She looks almost offended at the suggestions. "We're partners, aren't we? We've stuck around each other through firefights and trudging through radioactive waste, I'm not going to stick you in this hole by yourself. Besides, there's a few stuff in here I wanna get. I think you'd be interested in some of them, too." The vault's sole survivor's smirk shows in her next words. "Besides, don't you want to see a real life abandoned vault? An unlooted one?"

Now that piques Piper's interest. "As I've said before, you know how to show a girl a good time."

"Oh, that, I do."

There's no way Piper can tell herself that was not a flirtation. 

"Whoa." Piper can't help but express her bewilderment as they pass through the most complete, untouched vault she's seen. Vault 81 might still be up and running, but there is an eerie sense of wonder in being one of only two living people in this era to enter the bunker, which has probably been close to undisturbed for two hundred years. The history nerd in her rejoices until she passes through the first skeleton and wonders if it was anyone Blue knew.

"The med bay is this way." Blue tells her, making their way through one corridor. The vault had been closed off for so long that Piper can see the dust Blue kicks around as she walks, the lonesome sound of her footsteps echoing as far as she can hear. "I moved some of my stuff in here less than a week before the nuclear bombs detonated. Lucky me," she nostalgically grins. "I'd been putting it off for weeks and weeks and Nora scolded me about it all the time."

"Is that your..." _Your wife_. While her dangerous companion almost never talked about her, Piper knew she existed.

Blue nods. "Yeah. Nora was my wife. Married her two years after we met. I'd just retired from the marines and was working in law enforcement when I met her at a twenty four hour diner I usually visited to get coffee during my late shifts."

That's more information about her life than Piper had gained ever since their interview. Curiosity took over. "What was she like?" She asked, as they finally spotted the faded 'med bay' sign.

"Simple." Was her immediate answer. "Nora didn't care a lot about guns. She just wanted an ordinary life, build a family in a house with a white picket fence."

Piper strained herself trying to take her boots off. "She was... a lucky girl." She hisses.

"Funny. I always thought I was the lucky one." Blue puts a hand over her's to let her know she could rest. She slowly pulls her boot down, careful to not injure her further.

When Piper finally realizes what a bad idea it was to get her to talk about her dead wife, she quickly changes the subject to an easy one: the obvious and recently talked about one. "So you were in the army and went to the police when you retired, huh?"

"Yeah. I still had long hours but at least I didn't have to sleep in an army base." They both knew Piper's pant leg was ruined, so the veteran wasted no time before getting a pair of scissors and cutting through the bloodstained fabric. "Let me show you to my storage place, soon. It's about time I got the rest of my stuff. I've got some clothes and and a spare bag in there. Army vet privileges."

"What is it that you're so eager to get?" Piper finally asks. Blue has always been a fairly straightforward person who got what she wanted and didn't delay it. It seems more than a bit weird that she put off getting something so close to Sanctuary for this long.

She smirks and snips off a strip of cloth after dabbing a fair bit of alcohol on the wound and administering some gauze. "I think you'll be more happy about it than I will, actually." She says, preparing the stimpak she brought with her this morning. "Ready?"

"Always." Beyond the initial pain of the needle piercing the skin was the soothing feeling of the medical breakthrough that accelerated healing by a drastic amount. Finally seeing her wound without fabric covering it, Piper knew it would take a while to heal completely.

"You tried to pull your leg out, didn't you? The pincer just sliced into your muscles even more." Blue observes, slowly injecting the stimpak to avoid unnecessary discomfort. "Who doesn't love the turn evolution took these past two hundred years, am I right?"

Piper nods, watching her partner in crime wrap her dressed wound like she's done so thousands of times before. She probably has, in her pre-war days. She reminds herself. "Thanks a lot." She says, observing how expertly her leg had been treated.

Blue's face lights up at the realization that they can finally get what they came here for. "Let me show you what I've been saving for over two hundred years." She smiles brightly, putting her arms under Piper. She looks at her as a silent ask for permission, and after receiving a nod, she effortlessly carries the nosy reporter in her arms again.

There's a spring in her step that puts Piper at ease. And here she thought coming back here would bring up too many bad memories. After several turns in the maze of a vault, Blue inputs a passcode into a terminal by a locked door with what seems to be a super serious locking mechanism, and the door opens. What's inside is rows and rows of stacked footlockers and in the very end of the large room is a row of normal sized lockers. Piper guesses that the smaller footlockers are for the other residents of the vault and and lockers are for the more 'important' people. Her guess that Blue's one of the latter is confirmed when she puts her down so she can lean against the other lockers and starts taking off her faded army green jacket.

"I know what you're thinking." Blue rolls up the sleeves of her tan collared shirt, the top two buttons left undone. A snake tattoo that must encompass the length of her arm peeks out at Piper, proudly baring it's fangs on the woman's muscled forearm as she pulls a key tied with a leather string from around her neck. "Why do I get a locker while every other veteran gets one footlocker? That's why I decided to get this." She pulls out a bottle of bourbon. "Now you can strip me of all my secrets, one by one."

"You're a chatty drunk, huh?" Piper cocks her head to the side. Blue laughs a bit, embarrassed. "Only with my trusted confidantes, of course. Also, please don't tell Cait and Hancock I'm sharing it with you first and not them. They'd try to kill me and I'm not exaggerating."

"I'm flattered, Blue." Piper says in a sing-songy voice. "May I ask what's the special occasion?"

"I just thought it was overdue for us to have a drink together. Let you know who this old girl you've been watching is." She tears off the wrapping of the bottle and passes the clear bottle to her.

Oh, Piper had been watching her, all right.

"You do the honors. It's not every day you get to open a bottle of a hundred dollar bottle of pre-war bourbon, right? None of that watered down pisswater they serve these days."

Although she's fairly not sure how much a hundred dollars is worth, Piper assumes that it's a lot. "Careful. Keep doing this and I'll be following you to the middle of the glowing sea." She tells her, before twisting the cap and taking her first swig. The amber liquid is smoky and burns like heaven, leaving a warm trail down her throat and into her stomach. One taste of it and she slows down. This is definitely not something she wants to finish too soon.

"But you already have." The veteran smirks and takes the bottle that's offered to her, taking a shot.

"Hey, how could I not tag along behind you when you're wearing that shiny power armor? Swoon." Piper half-jokes, hoping that Blue will take her remark humorously instead of seriously.

"I don't know about you, Piper, but I don't think my ass looks very nice encased with armor." Blue retorts. "But then again, staring at my ass is probably why you're always behind me and not in front of me, hm?"

Piper doesn't deny it to herself, but she finds a way to deflect anyway. "I think it's more because you seem to soak up bullets like you're a sponge. And I need someone to go ahead of me, y'know, at least I won't be the one blown up first when we enter a minefield."

"Pfft." Blue rolls her eyes in good humor. "Please. You know we would have both spotted the first mine from a mile away."

Two drinks in, Piper starts to feel her tongue getting loose. "You know, given what you just told me everything is starting to make sense. I always thought it was super odd for a normal vault dweller to be this... this..."

"Good looking?" Blue cuts her off with a grin.

"You're not wrong about that part, but I was thinking 'capable'." Piper laughs. "Not that I'm saying they're useless, but living your whole life without having to deal with gunners and raiders and then suddenly getting thrown into the Commonwealth... well..."

"You don't have to mince words with me, Piper. I'll say it for you: most of them would see a deathclaw nest and try use it as a shit spot."

Piper nearly chokes with laughter in the middle of her drink. "Okay, you know what, give me that." She holds her hand out. When the neck of the bottle lands in her hands, she takes three slow, big gulps and hands it back. "Your turn. Time for you to spill them beans, Blue."

"Very well, then." Blue smirks, taking her own mighty three swigs. She's beginning to feel a heady rush from her drink of choice. "Ask away, Ms. Wright."

"What did you do in the military again?"

"I was in the Special Operations. Marines. After several successful high risk ops when I was pretty young, one went really wrong and almost my entire division was wiped out. I managed to not die by pretending to be one of the enemy. My CO thought I was dead but he knew he couldn't let those many of them standing. We were defending an entire town from them so he was ready to put on a suicide vest to take out as much of them as he could, hoping the sentries posted by the walls could take on the rest. When he knocked on the enemy's gates, I was the one who answered. Took every one of them out and rescued all the hostages."

"Are you telling me this just to impress me?" Piper crosses her arms, raising an eyebrow in amusement. In honesty, she would have called bullshit if it was anyone else who claimed the story, but she didn't doubt a word of it.

"The real question is did it work?"

Piper doesn't answer the question immediately. It's probably the alcohol loosening up her tongue, but her answer comes as naturally to her as breathing. "You didn't need to tell me that to impress me, Blue. You did that a really long time ago."

In Blue's eyes are a barely noticeable flash of disappointment. "You have seen me kill a lot of people, Piper. I'm surprised I haven't scared you off yet."

"That's not why I'm impressed." Piper quickly interjects. "Sure, you have a really good trigger finger, blah blah. Honestly, when I first met you, I thought the Commonwealth would change you. The smart adapt to their environment, and the problem is I always knew you were _really_ smart." She curses herself for letting her mouth open too much. She must've drank more than she thought, considering that this is no watered down alcohol. _Fuck it_ , she thinks, before bringing the bottle to her lips once more. If she's going to say a bunch of stuff she wouldn't say while sober, she's going to do it fucking drunk. "You're your own person, Blue. I like that about you."

"I like that about you too, Piper." Blue chuckles, looking away for a brief moment. After taking another drink, she opens her mouth again, then closes it. Finally, "Actually... I feel really grateful for being alive at the same time as you are."

Even though she's feeling a bit woozy, she's not ready to do something about how they've gotten noticeably closer as the conversation carries on. Piper decides it's a good time to ask her next question. "Tell me about that tattoo on your arm. I'm guessing that has something to do with why people call you Snake?"

"It's because my nickname was Snake Seven in my unit, actually." She sees the confused look on Piper's face. "You know, Eagle One, Falcon Six?" Another confused look. "Well, it was a nickname I got after that incident. I didn't pick it myself, my commanding officer did. I guessed that he maybe played too many video games, but he was impressed. He offered to pay for the tattoo, and I got it because it's a military thing. Besides, the nickname kept people from finding your family and personal information. It was a pretty important thing to do after how I put myself on their radar by massacring seventy of their men and costing them a valuable position."

"I'm guessing you were important, huh?" Piper shook her head after realizing what a stupid question it was. Of course she was important. "What led you to retire?"

Snake shakes her head slowly, taking another burning gulp of alcohol. "I ask myself that every day, Piper."

"Have you found the answer?" Piper herself can't imagine herself retiring. Morbidly, she always thought the day she retired would be the day she died in a rain of bullets somewhere far away from Nat.

Nod. "Yeah."

After receiving no elaboration, Piper passes her the bottle again.

"I never should have retired. Civilian life was never for me." Snake's eyes seem far away, lost in an era long gone. "Getting all the food you can imagine at a store two blocks away from your house, being able to ride a car everywhere, it was just... so normal."

"I get it." She doesn't really, she's never had those pre-war comforts, but she honestly doesn't want to. Piper puts a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension in her muscles fade at the contact. "I would've felt out of place too."

"And that's another one of the reasons why I like you so much." Shoulder to shoulder, it's getting harder for Piper to ignore the lack of distance between their faces when she turns her head to face the other woman. She can even smell the alcohol on her companion's breath.

"Funny, that's mainly why people hate me." Snake rolls her eyes and wipes a strand of hair from her forehead, inadvertently showing Piper the absence of the wedding ring she used to wear. She knows the Diamond City resident is astutely perceptive and she must have noticed it's disappearance from her finger. Had she been alone, the veteran would be banging her head against the wall right now. How sad is it that the Railroad agent, the General of the Minutemen herself with words as smooth as butter can't just fucking tell this stubborn, intelligent, amazing woman that she _likes_ her?

That's enough, she decides. "Well, that's why I think you're perfect for me." Snake manages to say without a single stutter, surprising herself.

A light dusting of pink coats Piper's cheek. She'd love to blame it on the booze, but it's fairly clear to both of them that it's not because of that. "Oh... Blue... that's really sweet."

"Am I not always sweet to you?" Snake chuckles, calming the racing thoughts in her head and casually slinging her arm around Piper's shoulder.

"Good point." She looks down in a very seldom moment of shyness before mentally smacking herself in the head. She's Piper Wright, god damn it, and there is nothing that she doesn't charge headstrong into. With that in mind, she grabs the collar of her partner's shirt and closes the distance between them.

The first touch of their lips is intermingled with the taste of alcohol and a mutual sigh that finally, this is happening and it's not a daydream. Piper's lips, slightly trembling at the touch she'd longed for, taste like the sweets the reporter was notorious for munching on all the time. It's a pleasant surprise for Snake to know that she hadn't just started ravishing her as soon as they kissed like she did in her lonesome dreams during her long travels. Instead, she kisses her slowly, almost impossibly softly. Her hands caress her face and run through the locks of dark hair with a gentleness most would think didn't exist for a woman who's been a close friend of death for so many years. Yearning for a better taste of her, Snake leans foward and finds a better angle for a deeper kiss, accidentally knocking off the hat Piper's so fond of. Surprisingly, Piper doesn't have it in her to care anymore. Minutes pass and their tongues caress each other in a slow, increasingly erotic dance before either of them find the willpower to part.

"Wow." A shiver runs over the entirety of Snake's body, breathless.

Piper giggles and gives her lips a small peck. "Yeah."

"Are you free this Friday?"

"Are you asking me on a date, Blue?"

"Maybe." She whistles for a few seconds. "Definitely. Ferals are squatting in an abandoned movie theatre. I think I've got enough materials to fix up a projector and set it up to watch something once we've gotten rid of them. What do you say?"

"It's a date, then."


End file.
